Reshaping Relations with Islam

Reshaping Relations with Islam

by RACHEL EISENSTAT
The Record (Goshen College)
10/8/2004

Discussing U.S.-Islamic relations, 133 people from campus and the community met for a forum Tuesday evening.

The primary topic was Arab Muslim and U.S. American perceptions of one another, as well as U.S. support of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but conversation focused mainly on the current war in Iraq. Three speakers opened the forum with their insights on the subject of U.S.-Islamic relations.

Dr. Omar Haydar, former executive director of Chicago's Council on American Islamic Relations, drew on his experience as a Muslim American to highlight the generalizations Muslims experience through the media. He noted that for some U.S. Americans, the Muslim faith has become synonymous with terrorism. Mentioning Eric Rudolph, a professed Christian responsible for the 1997 Atlanta area health clinic bombings, Haydar said, “Did anyone refer to him as a Christian terrorist?” He also said Palestinian suicide bombers who may not be religious are portrayed as Muslim extremists.

Mabel Brunk, Goshen College graduate and former Mennonite Central Committee volunteer, returned last week from a six-week Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation in Iraq. She spoke of CPT's involvement in beginning a Muslim peace team in Iraq that would educate fellow Iraqis about nonviolence. She also noted another effort to improve relations in which several CPTers joined with “tens of thousands” of Iraqis to call for a ceasefire last August.

David Cortright, president of the Fourth Freedom Forum in Goshen and currently teaching a course in Goshen's peace studies department, said that U.S.- Islamic relations “are in a disastrous state.” He presented 2004 data indicating that 98 percent of Egyptians have a negative perception of the United States. In Pakistan, 65 percent have a favorable impression of Osama bin Laden, while only 7 percent of Pakistanis feel positively towards President Bush. “We are generating animosities rather than friendships,” Cortright said.

Cortright emphasized that it is necessary for the United States to end its occupation and withdraw from Iraq. “The war on Iraq has galvanized the ranks of Al Qaeda,” he said, later adding that the U.S. should “use our power to support people rather than to dominate them.”

In response to questions about improving U.S-Muslim relations and U.S.-Iraq relations, all three advocated that citizens of the United States involve themselves in the political process. “We need to be speaking,” Brunk said, stressing that “we need to tell the candidates now what we want.”

Cortright said that understanding would come with involvement. “It's a question of citizens becoming more engaged,” he said. “We're not going to outspend corporations,” Haydar added. “The key is using what we can— our vote and our voice.”

The forum was part of the nationwide series “Hope Not Hate,” initiated by the nonpartisan organization Americans for Informed Democracy. Sophomore Hilary Mayhew serves as Goshen College's AID campus coordinator and organizer for Tuesday's event. “I was really excited about the turnout,” Mayhew said. “Dr. Haydar was successful in breaking down the .us vs. them' idea within the United States by pointing out that Muslims were victims of September 11, as well.” Mayhew hoped that the series would “put faces on some issues that may seem really foreign.”